By Jason Terry, talking about donating LinkedIn training to the staff at City Union Mission.

I’m not writing this story to promote Blue Gurus. I ‘m writing this post to promote City Union Mission.

We’ve been friends with City Union Mission for more than a decade. My wife and I personally support them on a monthly basis financially. Most of you reading this will have heard of City Union Mission, and you might already support their efforts (I would love to hear about it.)

Here is their mission statement.

We are an evangelical Christian ministry committed to sharing the
gospel and meeting the spiritual, physical, and emotional needs
of men, women, and children who are poor or homeless.

Every few years, my friend Dennis Chapman reaches out to see if we would be willing to provide LinkedIn training for their team. The last time we did so was at least five years ago, and their team has grown a lot since then. Not just in numbers, but in how savvy they are with social media. That said, there was a gap when it came to LinkedIn. There were some needed tweaks on some of their individual profiles, and they weren’t updating their LinkedIn company page regularly.

One of the things we see regularly with not-for-profit organizations is that they have a good handle on Facebook, maybe an email newsletter, and a decent website. Unfortunately, there’s usually missed opportunity when it comes to a LinkedIn strategy. The reason it matters? People that donate money often have jobs at companies in the community. And the majority of those people are on LinkedIn. It’s a trend that these people don’t use Facebook nearly as much as they used LinkedIn, so it’s important for City Union Mission to tell their stories on LinkedIn. The last time they had updated LinkedIn was six months ago. But they are updating Facebook almost daily.

So I said YES to Dennis about donating LinkedIn training.

We got together recently for about an hour and a half. I covered profile best practices, how to use LinkedIn on a regular basis and then touched on some research methods using the data that can be found in LinkedIn. We also talked a lot about telling stories and strategies to do this consistently across their website and social media accounts.

I was really impressed with how engaged everyone was. They asked great questions, and gave me great feedback after the training. I could tell they had learned some things that they were going to act on, the most important being to do personal status updates on their LinkedIn profiles. And the plan is for the marketing team to start updating their LinkedIn company page regularly.

On a personal note, as I was driving to their offices, I passed a man sitting under a bridge that was likely homeless. I usually go through conflicting emotions about giving someone in that situation some cash, and then worry about what they would do with it. I’m confident that supporting City Union Mission financially is a really good answer to that dilemma. The dollars will be used in the right way and make a difference where the money is needed.

Hello friends! I was going to tell you about Grammarly this week, but some things have happened with our “2016 Toilet Paper Drive for Hope House” that I just had to share. I’ll tell you about Grammarly and why I love it in a future post!

If you’ve already stepped up, thank you so much! My jaw dropped a couple of times in the past week because of your generosity. (More on that in a minute.)

We still need your help!

To get involved, all you need to do is buy a case of toilet paper on Amazon.com and have it shipped to us at: Blue Gurus, 17001 W. 83rd Terrace, Lenexa, KS 66219. (The product link is just a suggestion, any size/quantity would be great!) Please make sure donations are delivered before Thanksgiving, November 24th. I will post instructions for tax deductible contributions when I share the final results of our collection effort.

I’m a little shocked that we’re half way there.

There’s something special about broadcasting a call to action… and friends and family answering that call in spades. The blog went out last Tuesday, and a bunch of people emailed to let us know their orders were on the way.

On Friday I was hoping that a bunch of toilet paper was going to show up. The doorbell rang in the morning, and I went to see if it was Amazon dropping off cases of toilet paper. I was really excited!!!

I opened the door, and on the front porch was a tiny package from Amazon. Sad face.

I went back inside and got ready to leave for the day. I gathered up my laptop, keys, wallet, etc. and headed out to my car. I got in my car, opened the garage door and started backing out and noticed that my backup collision sensor wouldn’t stop beeping. I looked in my driver side mirror to make sure I wasn’t going to hit anything, and all I saw was a wall of cardboard boxes. WOW!!! I had fourteen cases (1,180 rolls) of toilet paper stacked in my driveway. #jawdrop

And the winner so far…

On Tuesday, one week after kicking things off, I got to Home Rental Services for one of our normal sessions together. The day was starting off with a staff meeting, so I wasn’t surprised as I started to walk in that everyone was sitting in chairs in a circle. What surprised me and stopped me in my tracks were the seven cases of toilet paper that made a temporary cubicle around the desk I normally sit at!

Home Rental Services and Neighborhood Handyman had pooled their resources and bought a massive donation of 672 rolls. #jawdrop2

Seriously. I was stunned. You should have seen my face. I am rarely at a loss for words… and I was speechless. It was a total surprise, and it melted my heart that people were willing to go above and beyond to help us make a difference.

And since I originally bought six cases totaling 480 rolls, I needed to buy three more cases taking the Blue Gurus contribution up to 720 rolls. There was no way I could let someone take the title of largest contribution away from us, and in the end, the real winner is Hope House.

More to come…

I’m looking forward to sharing the final count of TP rolls we’re able to collect for Hope House. Thank you so much to everyone that has already stepped up! And there’s still time to get involved if you can. Thanks!

In July 2014, we did a toilet paper drive for Hope House. Hope House provides victims of domestic violence with shelter and comprehensive services. We ended up collecting 2,200 rolls. That’s about a two month supply of toilet paper for their two locations.

My good friend Earl at Fry-Wagner Moving and Storage helped us deliver the cases of toilet paper to Hope House by donating a truck and two movers to get the job done.

As far as supporting local not-for-profits, we prefer not to do the same thing every year. We want to “spread the love” around our community. There are so many not for profits with very real needs. So we didn’t end up doing a toilet paper drive in 2015, but earlier this month I got an email from Hope House telling me they were in desperate need of common toiletry items, including… you guessed it… toilet paper.

It’s Time for Another Toilet Paper Drive!

Our goal is to collect 5,000 rolls of toilet paper for Hope House by the end of November. We’ve kick-started the process by ordering 480 rolls from Amazon.com.

Earl and Fry-Wagner Moving and Storage are going to support our efforts again this year. Earl said, “I hope that we have to use two trucks to pick up and deliver this time!”

Look at that sad, lonely stack of boxes. It’s hard to believe that they hold 480 rolls of toilet paper. We need a bunch more!

Current Donations (updated as we get them): 1,645 rolls as of 11/12/2016.

Would you partner with us to help Hope House? All you have to do is click on the link below to go to Amazon.com and order a case of toilet paper.

Shipping Address

Please be sure to have any toilet paper purchases sent to the address below:

If you answered YES to any or all of those questions, then we have the event for you!

Our good friends at Swope Health Services, whose Mission is to “Improve the health and wellness of the community by delivering accessible, quality, comprehensive patient care” are putting on the 2nd Annual Socks and Hops event on Saturday, November 12th, from 7 p.m.-10 p.m. in the City Market at 20 West 5th Street, Kansas City, MO 64106.

I wanted to write a follow up on the Toilet Paper Drive that we had for Hope House. Our goal was 1,000 rolls. Honestly, I had no idea if we would hit that number or not. It just seemed like a good goal that would make a real difference.

I was so happy to see that people were moved by the blog post and stepped up to help. It’s amazing what good can come from a single blog post!

We would like to thank the following people for donating a total of 2,200 rolls of toilet paper over the last six weeks!

I wish you could have been with Mic and I when we went to Hope House to drop off the stacks of toilet paper. It was amazing! I knew we were making a real difference for Hope House and it felt great. MaryAnne was so happy to see us. We made quick work of getting the rolls into their building and into the back of the truck that was taking about half of the rolls to their other Hope House location.

Several great things came out of this effort:

Lots of people came together to make a difference. Three contributors donated at least 250 rolls… awesome.

So many people stepped up that I had to find help to deliver all the boxes and bags of toilet paper. Earl was excited to help when I asked, and immediately said yes. We couldn’t have done it so efficiently without his help.

One of our clients, Kansas City Internal Medicine, was inspired by this effort and decided to run their own program at all of their locations. They will be blogging about it soon and we’re excited to see how many rolls they will be able to provide to Hope House!

Final Thought

This shouldn’t be a one time thing. The 2,200 rolls we were able to pull together will be enough for 2 months of normal use at the two Hope House locations. They can always use more, so if you missed out on our TP Drive, please consider running one of your own.

The feeling you get by helping others is one of the best feelings in the world!

Wow. It’s been an interesting three weeks since we got back from Vegas! We had the usual catch up to do with emails and phone calls, but we also faced more challenges than normal….and one of them in particular could have been avoided.

Austin Durbin

But before I go there, I wanted you to know that there are a ton of great things going on in our world:

We donated time to a group of MBA students working on a class project studying innovative businesses (we were honored to be chosen for a case study.) Read more

https://www.bluegurus.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Austin-Small.jpg480424Jason Terryhttps://www.bluegurus.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/BluegurusLogo-FeedBlitz.pngJason Terry2013-10-25 10:06:332016-09-19 12:38:10The Power of Picking Up the Phone

I met Kathy Nelson , President and CEO of the Sports Commission, through our mutual friend, Dara Macan. After that brief meeting, we decided we needed to get together to talk more about the Sports Commission and Blue Gurus.

Kathy is AWESOME. She has so much passion, and it comes through in everything she does. I learned a ton about the Sports Commission and the many ways they affect sports in Kansas City.

If you aren’t familiar with the KC Sports Commission and Foundation, watch the inspirational 5 minute video at the end of this post and see Kathy in action! Read more

Sometimes, when I’m sitting down to write my blog post for the week, I realize that I have a TON of things going through my brain. It becomes hard to pick any one topic, even though I could write a full blog post about each of them. This is one of those weeks. So here you go!

Thank You!

I’ve talked to a lot of businesses that had slower months during May and June. I saw that in our business as well. Mic and I both continue to “show up” and our efforts are paying off. July is going to be the biggest month in the history of Blue Gurus!

There are so many people to thank for that. Here are just a few!

Our retainer clients that lean on us to execute their blog and social strategy for them every month.

Hi friends! This is Jason, and I am sitting here at Black Dog Coffee on 87th street preparing to write my blog for this week. Mic and I take turns every other week writing the Blue Gurus blog posts. There are so many things on my mind today that I thought I would do another roundup of topics instead of focusing on one specific thing!

What Will You Do With the Time That’s Left?

Over Thanksgiving, a good friend and client of mine went through the tragic experience of his father dying unexpectedly. The news came as such a shock, and it has been on my mind off and on for the past few days. It was a strong reminder that we don’t know how much time we have left to make a difference.

It was an even stronger reminder that I have so many things to be thankful for. My health, a loving wife, a growing business, great clients, reliable friends and so much more. If you haven’t taken a couple of minutes to stop the “busy, busy” and think about how far you’ve come, I encourage you to do so TODAY. Read more

One of the things Blue Gurus takes pride in doing is giving back to the Kansas City community. While we all have our own individual causes in our personal lives, occasionally we also are fortunate to be able to help out in other ways.

She went on to say that he was organizing (and Krueger & James was sponsoring) the 3rd annual North Kansas City School District’s DECA Networking Conference for 100+ high school students.

DECA’s high school division currently has 185,000 members representing 5,000 schools and their mission is to “Prepare emerging leaders and entrepreneurs for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality and management in high schools and colleges around the globe.”

Deena asked if I would be willing to speak to the kids about LinkedIn and its role in finding jobs and doing business. I accepted Deena’s invitation and, on November 7th, headed to the North Kansas City Community Center where the event was being held. Read more